


(found the place to rest my head)

by cm (mumblemutter)



Category: Thor (Movies), Thor - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Incest, M/M, Minor Character Deaths, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-05
Updated: 2013-03-05
Packaged: 2017-12-04 10:01:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/709509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mumblemutter/pseuds/cm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Thor and Loki never grow up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	(found the place to rest my head)

The body floats by in the river, bloated blue and face down. There is a stick tangled in its hair. Red hair - the color snaps into focus in Thor's mind, and now it's a girl, not just a body. "Do you know who that is," he asks Loki. It's cold, and he huddles into his jacket for warmth, but it doesn't help.

Loki shrugs, not turning his attention away from the body. "The McKenzie girl, I think."

"Her? I thought she went away to college."

"Home for vacation. Supposed to go back tomorrow. Guess that won't happen now."

Thor never questions why Loki knows these things, or how. He just does. He tugs on Loki's hand, pulls him away. The police have arrived, flashing red and blue. "Come on," he says. "Let's go."

The cops interview them anyway.

Thor holds on to Loki's wrist, smiles a whole bunch and answers all the questions while Loki watches them pull the body out of the river. "How'd she die?" is the only thing he says.

"Son," the officer says. "Go home."

 

\----------

 

"Do you know what I am," Loki says. It's not a question: he's taken a chair by Thor's bed and he's smiling, and he has too many teeth.

Thor knows the answer anyway.

My brother.

No. Your brother is dead.

"I am -" Loki says, leaning forward, and Thor can smell the leather and the oil on his jacket, and the faint whiff of perfume that belongs to someone female, and blood. He can't smell Loki at all. "Something different."

Thor mouths the word but doesn't say it out loud: late nights watching tv with Loki's head lolling against his shoulder. Thor always chose the movie, unless Loki was angry enough that Thor had to relent. But art house ruminations on love and death and horror - Thor just wanted to watch shit blow up. He should have paid more attention to Loki's movies.

"I'm hungry," Loki says, as if it's the simplest thing in the world. He's hungry, he should be fed. Thor's the older brother: he should feed him.

"I'm sorry," Thor says. He's crying, he can feel the tears on his face. He doesn't bother to wipe them off. "I should have protected you from this. I should have."

Loki's lips curve up into a smile. "You were never any good at that," he says.

 

\----------

 

Two weeks before Loki disappears Thor's college acceptance letter arrives. It's not the best college, and despite his sports scholarship and financial aid, there's simply no money left over after that.

Not for Loki, not for the second son. The adopted one, although Thor insists that's not why. It makes him feel better to believe that's the case. Ma hugs Thor, whispers, "I'm so proud," and over his shoulder he can see Loki, tight lipped and pale.

"You can get a full ride next year, you're so much smarter than me," Thor says, afterwards. His brother is on his bed, and his green eyes glitter, so darkly. It's the truth: no-one's as smart as Loki is. Never studies, always one scheme or another. Thor indulges his whims because he's Loki and this is what Loki does. "You know money's been tight." Since Dad died, and all Thor remembers from the funeral is Loki's inconsolable rage, his thin frame almost vibrating with it. If you didn't know him well, you would have imagined it was grief. Even Mom was fooled. Or chose to be fooled.

She's like Thor that way.

He wonders, sometimes, who Loki takes after, if not them. Genetics, not nurture, although if you asked him he would swear to his dying breath Loki was his blood, no matter what anyone said.

"Of course I can get a full ride, that's never been the point," Loki says, and now Thor wonders if Loki's kiss will taste like sour like his rage, or if it will just taste like the sweet brother he used to be. Or perhaps he never was, and Thor just convinced himself otherwise. He watches the pale line of Loki's throat, the delicate flutter of his swallow. "You're staring at me again."

"Sorry," Thor says, glancing away. "I don't mean to."

Loki shows Thor how to hack into the school's admissions roster. He shows Thor how easy it is to mess with someone's life. He's been doing this for so long Thor doesn't even pretend to protest anymore. "Maybe I'll go with you," Loki says.

"But you still have another year," Thor says. Semantics. Loki could have graduated years ago. Could have skipped high school altogether. It might have been better, for him.

Loki's eyes narrow. Thor can see his face, reflected in the screen of the computer. "Don't you want me with you?"

Thor's room is filled with posters of chicks: female athletes mostly, and the random pin-up. Thor stares at a poster of Tilda Swinton. He only likes her because of that one movie Loki made him watch. The one where she plays a guy. "She's hot," he says.

"Not really. Answer the question." But he shrugs when Thor puts his hand on the back of his neck, says, "Forget it."

"You already know the answer." Thor pulls his hand away.

 

\----------

 

The girl's name is Amora.

That's all Thor knows, really.

The girl's name is Amora.

 

\----------

 

They had a boa constrictor, when they were kids. Loki wanted one and Mom said no and then Thor asked Dad and Dad, he said yes: you feed it, you understand? That's your responsibility.

Loki paid for the snake with his own money and the pet shop owner threw in the guinea pig for free. It squeaked in his arms, then stilled under Thor's anxious petting. "Don't get too attached," the guy said. "That's dinner."

It was Loki who cried, not Thor. Mom rocked him in her arms as Thor watched the piggy wander curiously towards the boa.

"I did tell you," Dad said, as he tucked Thor into bed. He pressed a kiss to Thor's forehead and said, "We'll get rid of it tomorrow."

When Loki crawled into Thor's arms that night he was still shaking. Thor rubbed his back, but he flinched away. "How could you," he asked, his eyes wide and teary, and it was the first time Loki had ever looked at him with anything less than devotion.

"I don't know." Thor said, and shrugged.

 

\----------

 

"She chose me, not you," Loki says, and he sounds dazed. "Imagine that."

"Loki, that's not -" He can't stop crying. Loki crawls into his lap, and kisses each hot tear away. His lips taste like ice, like death. Thor puts his hand over Loki's heart and is surprised when he can still feel a heartbeat, slow and sluggish.

"I'm hungry," Loki says.

"Okay," Thor says. "That's okay."

 

\----------

 

The girl's name is Amora, and she is too old to be in this club, except her face is young, and when she dances everyone stares.

She's as blonde as Thor is, and even Loki notices her, but she notices Thor, smiling at him from across the dance floor and slinking his way. There are flowers in her hair, woven together with gold thread that glints under the throbbing lights. "You smell delicious," she says, leans in to whisper in his ear.

But it's Loki she dances with. Loki whose hand she takes in hers and leads to the corner of the club, the two of them pressed together and swaying not at all to the beat of the music.

Thor turns away, fights down the bile in his throat. The bartender doesn't buy his Loki-made fake ID, but Thor smiles and he gets his drink. And afterwards, in the back alley of the club, he gets down on his knees.

 

\----------

 

Loki says her body was entirely drained of blood. "They kept that out of the papers," he says. "Because there were only two puncture wounds. Exsanguination. Not the worst way to go." Tory McKenzie, nineteen, only daughter of Jonathan and Susan McKenzie. A year ahead of him, they went out one time, but only the once.

He bought her a cheeseburger and she talked shyly about her college plans, her dog that she loved so very much. There was something delicate about her that reminded him of Loki. The bone structure, or the way she moved, fluid and near silent despite her too-high heels. Not the way she laughed though, her laughter was easy and given freely, even though Thor wasn't that funny. He liked her laugh.

"Her dog must miss her."

"I'm sure her parents miss her more."

"Yeah, but her parents know she's dead. The dog just thinks she abandoned him." It was a German Mastiff, he can't remember the name.

"Did you fuck her," Loki asks.

"Don't disrespect the dead."

"It's just a question."

"I didn't fuck her." But he's lying, and Loki knows, from the way his jaw tightens and he glances away.

Entirely drained of blood, Loki says. She was already so very pale.

Rufus, that's the name of her dog.

 

\----------

 

"I shouldn't have left you alone with her," Thor says.

Loki stops licking his face as if he wants to eat it. "You think I would have let you drag me away from scoring with a hot chick?" The words are out of Loki's mouth, but not at all anything Loki would ever say.

"You wouldn't have -" he starts. His face feels tight, as if the skin is stretched too thin across his bones. "I should have been there to save you."

"You still can." His fingers are on Thor's throat, and Thor can feel his own pulse beat, rabbit-fast. "Thor," Loki says, and again he sounds as if he's asking a question, but he's not. Thor's already said yes.

He wonders if Loki will dump him into the river as well, if he will watch as his body floats away.

He wonders if dying hurts.

He should ask Loki.

Loki always knows the answer to everything.

 

\----------

 

The day after they bury Dad, Loki comes into his room and crawls into his bed. They would do this as children, Loki crawling into bed with him and stealing the sheets, until Thor grabbed them back and kicked out at Loki for daring. It was Thor who clung, though. Thor who couldn't let go when Loki tried to leave, cleaving to him in his sleep and only releasing him when Loki whined, or stabbed him in the ribs with his elbows.

"We were fighting," Loki says tonelessly, his fingers skittering up and down Thor's ribs under his t-shirt like a hyperactive spider. "I can't remember over what. Over you. Everything's always about you."

"It wasn't your fault."

"Hmm, no, you're right. It was his."

"That's not what I meant. It wasn't anyone's fault. Dad had a weak heart. You know this."

Loki's fingers wander lower, to the curve of Thor's hip. Thor exhales, sharp, and Loki's gaze focuses on him with some sort of burgeoning awareness for the briefest of moments, before he spaces out again. "It's always someone's fault," he says.

Thor feels the imprint of his hand against his hip long after he leaves.

 

\----------

 

Loki has a police scanner on his PC. Runs it in the background like so much white noise. Thor says it's morbid, spying on others' misery, but Loki only rolls his eyes. "Most of it is domestic stuff," he says. "The occasional burglary."

"A girl is dead," he says now.

"Wait, another one?" Thor peers at the screen, white blocks of text against a black window. Body in river, female, possible homicide.

"I wonder who this one is. Maybe it's a serial killer. We've never had one of those before."

"Don't sound so excited."

Loki laughs, and when he tilts his head back to look up at Thor his eyes are shining, framed darkly by his lashes. "But what if, though," he says. "Wouldn't that be grand, if it were the case?"

 

\----------

 

He searches for Loki afterwards, the gum in his mouth not quite washing out the sour aftertaste. Yet another club he needs to avoid in the future: there was a number slipped hastily into his pocket accompanied by a bright, hopeful smile.

"Doesn't it get tiring after a while," Loki said once, "to be constantly loved. Do you ever get sick of it?"

"Love," Thor replied carefully. "Being wanted is not the same as being loved."

But he could tell, Loki wasn't really listening.

Thor can't find him. He looks everywhere, calls and texts and leaves voicemails: call me, please please call me.

She was only a girl, and this is a good thing, this is progress. But his skin crawls with the way she said, "You," to Loki, and there was triumph in her eyes as she led him away: look, how easy I'm taking away what's yours.

 

\----------

 

Loki's kissing the side of his neck now, his lips soft and his teeth so very sharp.

Thor wraps his arms around his waist and thinks about how fragile he is, still. He was always so thin, his brother. As tall as Thor by the time they got past puberty, but he never got built, for all that they used to run together, Loki's body gleaming pale when he took his shirt off, soaked with sweat. This when Thor stopped needing to win, and he would slow to a walk and say, "I'm done," wait for Loki to jog back for him. Loki would laugh, his hair a disheveled mess, and Thor would hug him casually, wipe black strands away from his face. Loki never noticed the way Thor's fingers trembled.

"Mom's worried sick," he says.

"Tell her I'm dead. I'm dead, Thor."

"I can't. It'll kill her. After Dad, and now you."

Loki laughs, and worries at Thor's throat some more. "She has you," he says. "All anyone ever needs is you. I'm hungry."

"So then what are you waiting for?" He drops his head back and bares his throat.

It's easy, it's the easiest thing Thor's ever done. He closes his eyes.

 

\----------

 

He used to be able to hold Loki down, one handed, until he begged for mercy. "Yield," he'd say, the word something he'd picked up in some late night movie or another. It was a good word.

Loki's face flushed delicately pink as he struggled, and inevitably yielded. He called Thor all manner of names, but they were just that.

"Asshole. Dick. Jerkwad."

"Yes," Thor said, grinning. "All of that."

It was a game right up to the time when Loki twisted an arm under him, jabbed him lightning fast, right in the kidney. Thor ended up on his back, Loki's face beaming down at him. "Do you yield," he said, and there was a gleaming sort of darkness to his voice. "Well?"

"Fuck you," Thor said.

 

\----------

 

Mom said, the night Thor went out to the club, "Take your brother, it'll do him some good."

"I don't think Loki's in the mood," Thor replied. He was hardly in the mood either. Two months after Dad, way too soon, but Sif messaged him and said: everyone will be there, just come. It will do you some good.

Sif and Mom, they were a lot alike.

But then Loki was standing on the top of the stairs, frowning in that way of his. "Go where?"

"We don't have to."

"Take care of him," Mom said, and Thor kissed her on the cheek before they left.

"Always."


End file.
